This invention relates generally to travel bags, and more particularly to a travel bag or cart suitable for serving as a laundry basket or bag.
Laundry bags, hampers or duffle bags are not easily transportable once filled with laundry. Conventional travel garments or devices such as suitcases or roller duffle bags are not suitable for maintaining dirty laundry such as hampers. Although suitcases and duffle bags are certainly constructed to carry clothing, they are not ideally suited to allow dirty garments to xe2x80x9cbreathxe2x80x9d. Hampers allow garments to breath through vents or holes or by having a wide opening on a top side which helps prevent the growth of mold or other odor causing bacteria.
Folding carts that are used by many to carry laundry have many of the characteristics of a hamper, but are not ideally suited to carry clothes for travel purposes. Folding carts fail to have an enclosed main compartment that would prevent clothes from falling out during transport or prevent clothes from additional accidental soiling during transport. Furthermore, access to clothes or other items in a folding cart is primarily restricted to a top opening, which makes it difficult to fold, sort or even retrieve items from the folding cart. Many folding carts may also fail to provide privacy by exposing dirty (or clean) laundry during transport.
In many living arrangements, washing machines and dryers are not necessarily close to one""s residence. For instance, in large apartment buildings or college dormitories, laundry facilities could be quite some distance away on a different floor or building or even away from the vicinity of the apartment building. Thus, using a conventional laundry hamper, basket, or bag to transport even a modest load of laundry would cause a strain for many people. Using a folding cart to transport laundry might be suitable in such an instance, but an individual wishing to travel in a car, airplane or other means or transport will likely need a separate travel bag to overcome the detriments of a folding cart.
Thus, a need exists for a combined travel and laundry bag or hamper that is easily transportable, provides adequate access to garments and further provides adequate aeration to the garments. Such a bag should enable the use of the bag as a hamper and laundry basket in one mode and the use of the bag as a travel bag in a second mode without the detriments described above.
In a first aspect of the present invention, a combination travel and laundry bag comprises a main compartment having a substantially parallelepiped shape with a first side that is longer and substantially orthogonal to a second side, an opening on the first side that is selectively closed for providing access to the main compartment as a travel bag, and an opening on the second side that is selectively closed, wherein at least a first meshed bag is selectively attached to portions of the periphery of the second side and wherein the first meshed bag hangs down when the second side serves as a top side of the combination travel and laundry bag.
In a second aspect of the present invention, a combination travel and laundry bag comprises a main compartment having a substantially parallelepiped shape with a top side, a bottom side, a front side, a rear side, a left side, and a right side, a first opening that is selectively closed for providing access to the main compartment as a travel bag on at least one side selected from the group of the front side, the left side, and the right side, and an opening on the top side that is selectively closed, wherein at least a first meshed bag is selectively attached to portions of the periphery of the top side.